Breaking Every Chain

ISAIAH 58:6 – “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?”

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When we think of fasting, we understand it to mean, refraining from indulging in an activity that distracts us from focusing on a deeper, spiritual connection with the Lord. Food is usually what is given up, as well as some other self-serving indulgences. In this passage, however, Isaiah explains that giving up such behaviors for a period of time is an act that demonstrates our efforts to loose ourselves from the yokes that keep us bound and chained.

The yokes can be personal habits that feed our bodies, keeping us trapped by acts of self-absorbed pleasure and self-gratification. But Isaiah reminds us that the chains that bind us can be those imposed by social oppression. When we stop focusing on feeding ourselves and understand that injustice is a powerful yoke that keeps us tied down, we can turn our attention from self-centered priorities to those that break the societal chains that bind us and so many others; we permit ourselves to hear what the Lord wants us to do for others to, “set the oppressed free and break every yoke.”

Beginning with our Lenten fast, as we close our mouths to food, we should open our ears and hear God’s instruction as to how we should not only break our chains, but help to break the chains that bind, restrict and limit the lives of others.

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“Dear Lord, help us break every chain: the chains of self-interest and isolation that keep us from reaching out to others to help them free themselves from societal inequities and injustices. Give us the will to stretch out our hands and provide some of the resources we have to help them break through the financial, educational and nutritional barriers that have kept them bound and imprisoned.

We ask these things in the matchless, magnificent name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Elder Le Roy Monroe